Many Forms of Cybercrime - Essay Example

Data breaches can be combatted by proper timing data or by individual businesses informing consumers about their rights regarding the use of their data. Illegal downloads can be combatted by actions by the music artists themselves, as well as remedies that involve shutting down the sites that sponsor the downloads. Child pornography, in and of itself, is best combatted with legal means, such as criminal prosecution. However, the two types of pornography that are examined in this paper – extreme pornography between adults and child pornography that involves characters - should be dealt with in other means.

The data breach section examines United States law, as does the section regarding illegal downloads. The pornography section involves UK law. Hence, the topics are examined with a multinational perspective, which is the best way to examine these topics, as these topics are global. Cybercrime – Data Breaches One major example of cybercrime is the data breach, which results in “the distribution of personal information 'beyond the bounds. consent and expectations.'”1 These breaches may be the result of an unauthorized person accessing a company's database or might be the result of an employee losing his or her laptop or another portable storage device.

These are only some of the ways that breaches might result, and there are many more. 50% of the data breaches are committed by employees of the company that is breached.2 Breaches can lead to identity theft and fraud, such as when TJX Companies, Inc., the operator of TJ Maxx and Marshall stores in the United States, announced in January 2007 that it was the victim of a security breach, which exposed 94 million credit card records to outsiders, and these outsiders made fraudulent credit card purchases with this information about TJX customers.

3 Since the cardholders had to pay for the fraudulent charges, not the individual customers, the banks who issued these cards filed suit against TJX and won a $41 million verdict ordering TJX to pay to reimburse them for their losses.4 Moreover, since up to 400,000 of the TJX records included their customer's social security numbers and driver's license numbers, the thieves were able to steal identities as well.5 Stealing social security numbers is an infinitely more serious problem than accessing the individual's credit cards, as identity thieves can use the social security number to open up new accounts for which the individual is responsible, and gives the thief “virtual keys” to the victim's financial life,6 enabling the thief to “empty bank accounts, obtain credit cards, secure loans, open lines of credit, connect telephone services, and enroll in government benefits in the victim's name,”7 while merely stealing credit card information only leaves the individual with the inconvenience of having to close that particular account.

Moreover, “[i]dentity thieves also commit crimes in the victim's names. A victim of criminal impersonation risks arrest and a criminal record for an identity thief's transgression”8 Breaches resulting in thefts of social security numbers are very expensive and time-consuming for the victims, as they spend an average of $1,000 in out-of-pocket expenses and 600 hours in personal time cleaning up the mess, and lose on average $16,791.9 The risks of social security numbers and other personal information falling into the wrong hands can also be deadly, as in the case of the information broker who sold a woman's social security and employment information to the woman's stalker, who used this information to track her down and kill her.